


Sun, vermilion and mercury

by eleinuin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Difficult Decisions, Fear, Graphic Description, Hallowen Special, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, horror story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:48:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27285931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleinuin/pseuds/eleinuin
Summary: "Who the hell is Bucky?" The cherry lips of his deceased best friend ask with absolute indifference and anguish falls on Captain America's stomach like a slab on the grave.Any doubt? None. He has changed, it’s evident; the handsome, neat man he met a lifetime ago hasn't shaved in a couple of days, and his long, straight hair sways to the rhythm of his panther body.But his eyes, those eyes that look at him concentrated and empty at the same time, and as blue as storm clouds, don’t remember him.They don’t remember them.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 3





	Sun, vermilion and mercury

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Sun, vermilion and mercury](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196010) by [eleinuin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleinuin/pseuds/eleinuin). 



"Who the hell is Bucky?" The cherry lips of his deceased best friend ask with absolute indifference and anguish falls on Captain America's stomach like a slab on the grave.

Any doubt? None. He has changed, it’s evident; the handsome, neat man he met a lifetime ago hasn't shaved in a couple of days, and his long, straight hair sways to the rhythm of his panther body.

But his eyes, those eyes that look at him concentrated and empty at the same time, and as blue as storm clouds, don’t remember him.

They don’t remember them.

Steve will always recognize the face that even today haunts him in his nightmares and here in New York, 70 years after the fateful mission that caused the death of the only Howling Commando, his ghost has come to drag him to hell.

Who the hell is Bucky?

His best friend, and Captain America doesn't know what it's like to be Steve Rogers without Bucky to remember him.

The soul of the Brooklyn kid who just wanted to do the right thing cries. He got into the army, but at what cost? Too high, too long. Today he still doesn't know if it was worth it, because that day his heart died.

One blink and Steve can swear those pupils are looking for him, tracing in his memory like a bloodhound on a trail. Bucky is still paralyzed in that vibrant predator stillness and Steve needs to stay there. He needs to be found.

Around him the screams recede. The sepulchral calm has settled in the street and nothing moves. The silence is only disturbed by the purr of abandoned cars and forgotten radios. People have fled the place leaving the situation to the heroes, and due to an injustice in life, Bucky isn’t one of them.

But at least he's still in front of him. Black leather and mercury arm, the look of the James Barnes specter.

One heartbeat, another, and the leaden irises move, widening as they catch a glimpse of something that catches their attention, leaving Steve's eyes barely inches away. With one fluid movement, he grabs a dagger and throws it in his direction.

The instinct and training cause him to raise his shield to protect himself, but the knife passes over him and he hears the close impact against something metal. He raises his head for a second to see a… can? No, a grenade that has been deflected by Bucky's dagger, and when he looks back at him it's too late.

Wilson, armed with stealth, courage, and dark wings, kicks Bucky with the force of an avenging angel, making him roll on the ground until he hits the curb, right in the area of influence of the small striking orange grenade.

Steve's body moves towards the area, shield high and fear in his guts. Bucky has barely begun to retreat when the grenade explodes, making an awful noise that causes all the hair to stand on end at the sound of a sacrilegious jelly splash. A noise that isn’t of this world.

Dozens of vermiform and vermilion tendrils expand from the grenade like a sea urchin, spreading their quills looking for prey. Hunting.

And finding his first victim.

They cling to the legs, to the torso, to the arms covered with dark leather, and through the body like smoke, disappearing from sight while the other tendrils continue to seek more sacrifices for their impious appetite.

But Steve can't fail his friend again. He needs to protect him, redeems himself from the first sin he committed.

This time he won't drop him.

He throws the shield that seems to cut the tentacles that prevent him from approaching, dissolving them in the air and filling the place with the smell of swamp, of putrefaction.

Bucky's face twitches in horror as he realizes, along with his tentacles, the blond man’s proximity "No!" He barks with a gasp as he pushes away the man trying to drag him out of the area. The blonde hits his bones on the ground and the shield bounces off without an expert hand catching it, lying on the inert ground with its three colors shining in the sun.

The one who was the Sergeant of a nation rises trembling, his hair swaying to the sound of an invisible whirlpool, and begins his escape among the cars caught in the retention, many of them abandoned by the owners who have decided that their life is worth more than their vehicle.

But Steve doesn't hesitate for a moment. It doesn't matter that Sam is risking his life. It doesn't matter that Natasha is bleeding. His heart pumps with the force of a hundred horses and his legs lead him on the trail of the man he once knew better than himself.

Although Bucky runs like a man possessed through cars and motorcycles, Steve jumps the obstacles with the body of a demigod that science has given him; nothing distracts him from his goal who seems to start to have symptoms of fatigue because he is delayed, staggers and soon stops in front of a car. He trembles so hard that it is a miracle that he is standing.

Bucky leans on the hood of the car, almost slipping away, and turns to his pursuer with a knife in his hand of flesh that shakes like jelly. His face is contorted and sweating an ocean.

That stops Steve's locomotive advance, barely remaining a couple of feet away when the man utters an agonized scream that he himself interrupts with a sharp angular jaw snap. But while the dagger that separates the two bodies trembles like a flan, the assassin's breathing shoots up, difficult and irregular. Undiluted pain seeps down Bucky Barnes' pale, almost white face. He closes his eyes tightly and a groan escapes from between his teeth, makes Steve look for where the wound is.

He looks at his friend as he spreads his hands, appeasing. He looks for information in the haggard eyes, in the elegant body, and suddenly he freezes. There are ... differences. Has his strong chin softened? And the sharp cheekbones? he wonders when he realizes that nothing is left of the beard he had just five minutes ago.

What the hell?

A horrible and heartbreaking scream comes from Bucky's throat, who lets himself slip through the hood, falling to the ground on his knees while with a shaking hand he tries to open his suit, the knife left on the dirty pavement and the silver arm totally dead.

The blood has left a dark trail on the white hood of the car and Steve doesn't know what to do. He doesn’t understand what is happening but he checks that the optical effect isn’t a trick. Buck appears to have shrunk and the metal left shoulder is slightly out of proportion to the other arm. Bucky's fingers are shaking so badly that he stops struggling with the buckles to grab the straps of his vest and try to tear them off, but he shrinks again when another agonized scream escapes his lungs. Steve takes one step closer and crouches down to where he is sprawled on the hard asphalt.

Blood begins to trickle down the gleaming metal grooves like a macabre aqueduct as the arm remains motionless. The constantly dripping pool of blood to his left spreads like an oil stain. The white face is streaked with tears, the eyes wild, and the pulse can be seen with the naked eye in the swollen forehead and neck veins.

He is the spitting image of agony.

Steve wants to help but his hands don't even know where to start. He begins to undo the buckles, restrictions worthy of a sadist, and the moment he releases the straps and places his hands on the black leather, he feels the hot red blood oozing out, soaking it, seeping viscous between his fingers and making them slippery.

Buck stares at him wide-eyed, wet with tears and despair. The tremor is getting worse, he's sweating, hyperventilating, but there's a little acknowledgment and he nods when the face he knew (he knew him!) carefully grabs the tactical vest and silently asks for permission, as if the weapon that has shaped the century was a delicate thing

The Active clenches his teeth and the jaw muscle tightens in that hairless cheeks, in that face so young. The leather jacket is held tightly and firmly by the hands of his enemy, his best friend, and he tries to control his own wild breathing.

Steve nods and with a strong jerk breaks the seams that closed the shoulder and neck. The scream silenced by sheer force of will gives him goosebumps, the sobs that follow make his heart sink, and the tears sting. With care, he removes the black monstrosity that is left hanging by the waist and the forearm of flesh, now noticing the thin body of the Soldier.

Once the synthetic arm is released, the metal that was attached to the skin at the shoulder and part of the chest protrudes irregular and bloody, too large for the body that wears it. The edges are sharp, like very fine metal blades, one superimposed on the other, weaving a plate armor on the skin. This one is torn, bloody, and Steve can't help but notice that in some places it could even fit a whole finger.

He swallows loudly. He has only seen such injuries in World War II and they are still nightmare stuff today.

He takes off the blue jacket followed by the cotton shirt and places the latter on his friend's chest, at the rough and sharp juncture of the metal that occupies a part of the pectoral and the trapezius. Bucky yells, pushes, and kicks trying to push away whatever is happening on his shoulder.

“Hey pal, come on, it's me. I'm Steve, do you remember me? Friends since we were children. Until the end of the line, huh?” He babbles as he grabs the hand of flesh that pushes him and brings it to his chest, trying to set a more stable breathing pattern than the irregular and suffered gasp of lungs about to collapse. Once upon a time, it was the sickly Steve's bronchial tubes that needed guidance in asthmatic attacks, in what is now a long-forgotten time. And he could always count on the support of his friend.

He pats his plump, sweaty cheek, leaving his imprint in carmine. At least he reacts, staring at him with narrowed eyes under thick dark lashes. The eyes are red from pain or crying and that is another drop in the glass of sadness that overflowed in February 1945.

“... Cut it ...” he asks in a raw voice and a desperate look as the hand that he holds on his broad and defined chest becomes a fist. Steve is paralyzed at the risky request, with a dry mouth and a knot in his stomach. How could he be able to do something like that to him?

A low, pained groan followed by a shudder, is the precursor to a hideous scream. The lips tighten behind the bared teeth, the eyes tightly closed with the lashes loaded with salty dew, and a deep furrow between the eyebrows appears. Sweat beads every inch of his ashen skin, already soaking his long brown hair in thick strands. The hand on Steve's chest becomes a fierce claw, fingers and fingernails searching for something to hold onto, leaving bloody furrows in its wake. Steve grabs his hand tightly and is rewarded with the grip of a hydraulic press. He swears he hears muscle and skin loosen from metal and is sure that sound will haunt him in his worst nightmares for the rest of his days.

When the ghost of a past life reopens its eyes, it abandons the hand that holds it and gropes around the ground as if possessed. Steve's abandoned palm flies to the wet, lean skin shoulder to keep the injured man steady despite the sudden jerks. The little man in front of him, a Bucky who doesn’t come of age, does not fill the suit he wears. It is disturbing to watch how he is rapidly rejuvenating through stages of life that he knew so well. The first girlfriends, the first jobs as a delivery man...

But now he has a knife in his hand again, and before Steve can even move a muscle he stabs himself and drives the sharp blade into the bleeding flesh where the metal separates from his body inch by inch. The yelp of pain does not do justice to the carnage he begins to do, the blade, pressing down and slicing further into his tender flesh, helping the metal to separate in a bloody way.

"Get it out!" He begs desperately before a miserable and powerless Steve. The pleading look behind the bloody blade he offers him, so pale and so young, gives him the determination he needs to take the slippery, bloody handle.

Another tremor shakes him like a terrified child, the scream interrupted by a gurgling sound. He collapses on Steve's lap, who watches in awe as the body continues to shrink in full sunlight.

The separation between arm and torso is now horrifying, as if half of the young body is shedding, taking with it flesh, blood, veins, and skin. Bucky, barely a teenager now, drags his face up his thigh with a strangled, gasping groan. The flesh hand desperately clings to the khaki pants and in front of Steve, the practically bare spine of pale skin and marked vertebrae stretches. Old scars like traces of silver cover him and suggest a lifetime of pain and torture.

The epitome of integrity, courage, and sacrifice notes how a heartbeat skips and the strangulation that feels in the heart is vicious, cruel. Now he knows the consequences of the only time Bucky Barnes needed his help and he didn't show up on time.

Gunfire and sirens are heard in the distance, a reminder that Hydra is still hunting and time is running out. He sighs deeply and runs his fingers through the wet hair of his best friend who is whimpering in despair. He throws a prayer to any god who can lend him a hand and grips the dagger tightly. The vile and perfidious blade glints gloomily for a second in the crystalline stillness that settles just before digging deep into the flesh, scrabbling through the mercury and vermilion under the relentless sun.

Soon the only sounds that break the silence are the strangled screams of a terrified kid.


End file.
